Guyana’s backward educational system

Jul 04, 2019 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The results of the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) for 2019 were released yesterday. For a small group of pupils who gained admission into the top five secondary schools in Georgetown and the two top schools each in Berbice and Essequibo, their results are reason to be happy.
But for more than 90% of the other pupils the results of the examinations and the schools to which these students will be assigned is disastrous.
Guyana’s educational system is notorious for producing a few high-flyers and massive numbers of low-performers. And it is the performance of the high-flyers which creates the myth of a top-class educational system.
The overall results of the examination represent, yet again, a catastrophe. It is reported that it is only in Mathematics that there was a marginal improvement in the pass rate over the previous year. For the three other subjects – English, Social Studies and Science –there was a decline with an average more children failing than passing.
One senior official had a ready-made excuse. That official stated that education is a gradual process and that it will take time for results to be shown.
Learning, rather than education, is a gradual process but this does not mean that improvements in educational performance should be gradual. It is possible for schools and countries to enjoy rapid improvements in their standards of education.
In the United Kingdom at the moment, there are evaluations taking place within the educational systems. The performance of schools is being assessed. Some schools have demonstrated the ability to have rapid improvements in performance.
Singapore is a noted example of a country which has transformed itself through rapid improvements, at all levels of its educational system. Singapore is smaller than Guyana and has very little resources. It was extremely poor.
It transformed itself into an industrial power. It was able to do this because from 1979 it transformed its educational system to deliver rapid improvements.
One of the systems which it introduced allowed it to track the progress being made by children. This system recognized that not every student developed at the same pace and so the smarter students who learnt faster were pushed ahead while others were given time to develop to their full potential. Technical education suited to the country’s needs was also introduced early in the school’s curriculum.
Singapore has proven that rapid improvements are possible within the education system. The United Kingdom has shown that methods of assessing the progress made by schools can force them to try to improve educational performance more rapidly.
These findings challenge the contention of a senior government official that education is a gradual process which takes time to show results.
This is simply not true. Schools and countries have shown that it is possible for rapid improvements to be made but it has also shown that after these rapid improvements, progress tends to be stead rather than continuously rapid.
Our children are not failing, they are being failed. The education system is failing them.
The time has come for the government to stop excusing the mediocre performance. A new approach to education is needed. When the no student should be left behind policy was introduced it was severely criticized, including by those who now exercise control over our educational system.
But no special school for gifted and rapid learners has been introduced. Nor has the school system been adopted to cater for those who learn at a far slower pace than normal.
There is no serious attempt to grapple with the serious failures which are taking place at the primary level. The same outdated approaches alone are taking place. The APNU+AFC has delivered nothing new or novel to transform the educational system.
Unless there is paradigm shift in the way education is delivered in Guyana, nothing is going to change. The results of the NGSA will continue to be one of heartbreak for the majority of pupils. And we will remain a backwater country with backward educational system.
Some people feel that development will lead to improved education. It is the other way around: it is education that will drive development, as Singapore has proven.

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Guyana’s backward educational system

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